Education for Liberation

Khanya College Working Class History Programme

One of the important programmes that Khanya College offers to various trade unions and social movements covers the political, social and economic history of the working class. The programme includes workshops and publications on South African working class history. As part of its commitment to promoting a broader knowledge and understanding of the history of the working class movement in South Africa and internationally, Khanya College has recently developed a partnership with the Workers Library and Museum (WLM) and with the Labour Research Service (LRS). The aim of the partnership with the WLM is to building the library and museum so that it can serve as an educational tool and monument to the working class movement in South Africa and internationally. The partnership with the LRS, a labour support organisation based in Cape Town, consists in a collaboration on a labour history website, http://www.labourhistory.org.za

The need for a programme focusing on the history of the working class movement in South Africa

The trade union, student and community-based movement that emerged in the late 1960s and the early 1970s played a critical role in the struggle for political, social and economic change in South Africa. After years of silence following the banning of mass political formations in the early 1960s, the wave of strikes that broke out in Durban in 1973 signaled a revival of the mass movement, and provided a powerful impetus that led to the 1976 Soweto uprising. The independent trade union movement did not only contribute to the struggle through opposition to the apartheid regime. The new unions also experimented with, and over time developed participatory forms of democracy that became a model in the democratic movement as a whole. The shopsteward form of democracy became a model for organisation in the schools, in the townships and many other cites of struggle. The independent trade unions also made a unique and important contribution to the development of social and economic policies informed by solidaristic and egalitarian philosophies. These perspectives continue to contest the prevailing global economic orthodoxy, and to act as beacons in the struggle for egalitarian social organisation.

Although a number of publications have been written about the history of the mass working class movement, there are large areas of this history that remain to be captured. On the other hand, the rise of the new social movements since the end of the 1990s has provided additional reasons for this history to be written and debated. Many of these new movements are beginning to appreciate the wealth of political, strategic and tactical experience that was accumulated by the mass movement of the 1970s-80s. Furthermore, this history needs to be written and presented in a way that is accessible to large layers of activists in the social movement and trade union militants.

Indeed, the exodus of layers of activists and unionists from the movement makes the need to capture this history even more urgent. The emergence of a new leadership for the working class movement is also taking place in a national and global context that is hostile to the collectivist traditions of the mass working class movement. The forces that are driving the present economic and political globalisation have undertaken an ideological offensive that seeks to obliterate the contributions of the working class movement to human development over the last 200 years.

Recording the history of the working class movement, and making this history accessible to the thousands of activists today, is important for the continuing vitality and the future of the movements struggling for egalitarian social change. The strategic and political lessons from this history form an important part of the present organisational resources of the social movements and the unions.

Aims of the research programme

The aims of the research project are to:

1. promote knowledge and understanding of the history of the working class movement, and of the trade unions in particular
2. assist in building the present working class movement through popularisation of its history
3. promote solidarity with other working class movements in other parts of the world through sharing experiences of the South African working class
4. create a resource for further research into the history of the working class movement in South Africa
5. promote critical debate into strategic challenges facing the working class movement in the present era of globalisation by providing a context in which the strategic choices made by the workers' movement in the past can be debated
6. utilise historical enquiry as an aide in the search for alternative social, economic and political systems to the present neoliberal social order

Activities of the Programme

Together with partner organisations, Khanya College will engage in following programme activities:

1. Research and the development of research resources
2. Popular publications, including print publications, on-line publications, audio and audio-visual products
3. Educational workshops on the history of the working class movement
4. Conferences on the history of the working class
5. Seminars on working class history
6. Development and operation on a Museum of South African working class history
7. A collection of books, pamphlets, and other publications on the history of the working class
8. A website on the history of the working class in South Africa

Key themes to be covered by the Programme

Although the programme will look at all aspects of the working class movement in South Africa, and at all periods of this history, the initial phases of the programmes will focus on the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. The programme will emphasise the place of the trade union movement in the history of this period, and will focus on eight themes. These are:

Hidden forms of resistance on the eve of the 1973 Durban Strikes
This theme will look at strikes and other forms of resistance by workers in the context of the repression of the 1960s.

Durban Strikes of 1973
The research will look at the processes that led to the strikes in Durban, why the strike broke out at the time they did, and why they broke out in Durban and not in another city in South Africa. The process of the unfolding of this strike wave will also be researched.

The role of intellectuals in the early years of the labour movement
In many cases intellectuals based at universities and at other institutions played an important role in the rise and the consolidation of the democratic labour movement. This role, and the forms it took, will be researched and documented.

International Solidarity in the early years of the democratic labour movement
This theme will focus on the role of international solidarity in the consolidation of the new labour movement. The role of broad anti-apartheid solidarity, as well as solidarity specifically aimed at supporting the emerging labour movement will be researched.

Gender and women in trade unions
The role of women workers and activists in the development of the South African labour movement will be researched and documented.

The democratic trade unions and community organisations
From early on the new trade unions had to define their role in struggles beyond the shopfloor, and therefore their relationship with community and student organisations in the various townships in South Africa. Under this research theme this relationship will be researched and documented.

Forms of union organisation in the formative years
The present predominant form of organisation of the trade unions in South Africa is that of national industrial unions. This form, however, had to contest for hegemony with other forms of organisations like general unions, or the so-called "community-based unions". This theme will research the various forms of union organisation in the formative years, and document the experience of the union movement with regards to organisational forms.

Trade unions and politics in the formative years
Given the context of apartheid in South Africa, the new trade unions had to define their relationship to the political landscape in South Africa. This included defining their role in the broader anti-apartheid struggle, and their relationships with various political organisations. In this theme of the research project we will document the debates within the movement about the role of the trade unions in the broader anti-apartheid struggle.

The programme is sponsored by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, based in Berlin, Germany. The website of the RLF is http://www.rosalux.de/engl/home.htm